Friday, June 29, 2007

VT Chicago Diner Burgers

As soon as I saw all the burger recipes in the latest VT I knew I had to try this one of the Chicago Diner fame. Always on the hunt for non soy patties, this bean lacking variety was something new and exciting for me!

They were extremely sticky and almost didn't make the flip during the oven baking but that all worked out in the end (what a lesson in patience, tho, to not completely destroy them!). After baking I opted for broiling each side for 7 min rather than grilling as we're still in the market for a new grill. I broiled four of them and still was able to freeze the other eight! which I'm planning to heat on the George Foreman* when I make them again.

The flavor is wonderful (the base is oats with lots of shrooms and onion and celery) and the texture is crunchy on the outside and chewy on the inside. At first I thought too chewy, but the more I ate of them (the four are all gone now!) the more I dug it.And the simple roasted red pepper aioli? Heaven!I served them up with some leftover veggies, sweet white corn off the cob and roasted cauliflower. I'm thinking a bed of spinach for my burger would have been just what I needed to complete this tasty meal. I'll do that next time!

*just put one of the frozen patties in the GF for 7 min only to find a very flattened mess when the time was up. A yummy mess, once scraped off the grill and sandwhiched between two slices of whole grain bread and topped with the aioli, but a mess nonetheless. Moral of the story? these puppies work best in the oven or on a regular grill but won't hold up to the pressure of a GF like contraption.

8 comments:

I haven't tried the red pepper aioli with the ones I made based on the recipe because I thought I was out of red peppers, but it turns out they were just hiding in my pantry, those suckers. why am I telling you this? I have no clue. I'm the babbling monster of doom, omg! *munches on monitor for all the food goodness you're showing here*

I was attracted to this recipe in VT too! Being slow the way I am though, it will take me a few months to get around to it... I'll take into account your report of how sticky and delicate it is during cooking.

this is great! I was planning on making these sometime next week - I too saw the recipe in Vegetarian Times, and it looked like a winner to me. hopefully my attempt to make these will be as successful as yours!! (wishful thinking, ha)